A New World
by Ragna ICEland
Summary: William Dethridge believes he is on the brink of a great discovery, that he can reveal the greatest secret of alchemy. All it will take is just one more experiment...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Guess what? I've got something new. And it's going to have chapters! Frankly, because 's textwalls look quite unappealing. So this is going to have maybe 3-4 parts, just to make it easier to read. This is the 1st. And it's neither Luciano centered, nor romance centered but I hope you will forgive that.**

William Dethridge awoke, dazed and disoriented. The last he remembered was a bright spark in the disk on the table in his laboratory, when he poured in the last of the oils. But where was he now? He was in a laboratory but it was not his, that much he could tell. The stones of the ceiling looked unfamiliar, as did the books on the shelves and table opposite to the cot he was lying in, and the instruments on it. They gleamed in the light from a fireplace but the windows and door were shut.

Dethridge sat up. He felt no pain in his body, which seemed strange after what must have been a powerful explosion. His clothes were torn and burnt. He looked around and saw beside him the copper dish he had been working with. In it there were some pebbles of various sizes, shining in the firelight. He picked one up and looked at it in amazement. Gold. Had he made it? He lifted it to his mouth and bit into it, denting it. He was exultant but there was no one around to tell. More importantly, there was no one around to tell him where he was and what had happened. He guessed he had been knocked out and his unconscious body moved. But where?

Well, really only one way to find out. He had just gotten up on his legs when the door opened and a dark haired man with a neat beard and bushy brows walked in with a stack of books in his arms, whistling to himself. He stopped short when he saw Dethridge. "Who are you? How did you get in here?" the man asked sharply.

"My name is William Dethridge and I am terribly sorry but the truth is, I have no idea how I came to be here. I woke up here just now. I was experimenting in my laboratory late into the night and something went wrong," Dethridge explained.

"How can that be?" said the man. "I've only been gone a scant few minutes to fetch these books, I would have heard such a commotion if someone had carried you here. And why would they do that? Whoever 'they' are…"

"I really have no answers, I don't even know how long I have been out of my senses. But perhaps I might go back to the laboratory to find out what has happened, my family might be worried," said Dethridge. "Where am I now?"

"You are in my laboratory in the University of Bellona and I am Frederico Bruno."

"Bellona? I have never heard of such a place," Dethridge said and then regretted it because the man – Bruno – puffed his chest and seemed offended.

"Never heard of Bellona? And not I suppose of our esteemed University? And yet you seem to claim you are a man of science? I find it far more likely that you are but a brigand who has wandered in here in a drunken stupor," said Bruno and it was Dethridge's turn to flare up.

"A brigand! No sir, I assure you, I am a mathematician of Wadham College in Oxford and an alchemist at the Royal Court of her Highness Elizabeth!"

Bruno was staring at him. "You speak nonsense, man. Are you claiming to be from Anglia while making up the name of your ruler? You must be touched in the head."

"How dare you? Even I have discovered the secret! I, William Dethridge, have found a way to create gold. Behold!" he pointed to the golden pieces on the plate, standing on the cot beside him but this did not have the desired effect. Bruno merely scoffed.

"Your highest ambition is to make a cheap metal that tarnishes?"

"No, what are you saying? I've made gold, not silver," Dethridge said impatiently.

"Yes, and you full well know it is the gold that tarnishes, and not the silver," insisted Bruno.

Dethridge began to argue but then instead, he said: "Please, tell me again, where am I?"

"In the University. In Bellona. Talia!" Bruno crossed the room, dumped the books on the table, turned to the window and opened the shutters wide to let the sunlight in so Dethridge had to cover his eyes for a moment.

Then he gasped and came to the window. He was clearly not in Barnsbury. What was more, through the open window, he saw in some distance two tall, narrow towers standing side by side, slanting a bit to the side, one a little higher than the other and he knew them.

"Bologna," he said astonished. "I am in Bologna. In Italy. But how can that be?"

But Bruno was not listening, he was staring at something behind Dethridge.

For a moment he thought someone else had entered the room but when he tore his eyes away from the scene outside and turned around, there was no one and Bruno was looking at the floor.

Dethridge followed his gaze and he saw it. His heart lurched. Where both of their shadows should have stretched out, there was only one, that of Bruno's. What did it mean? Was it perhaps all a bad dream? Or – he gasped – was he dead and this the afterlife? But how could Bologna be a part of that? Was he a ghost? But he felt the strong beat of his heart in his chest, had never felt it so strongly. Nothing made sense.

"I think you had better tell me your story all over again," said Bruno.

Dethridge nodded. "Yes, and then perhaps you might answer some questions that I have."

They shut the door and window again, poured themselves tall glasses of wine and talked for a long time.

"Well," said Bruno afterwards, leaning back in his seat. "Your story seems most implausible to me and yet I have no way of proving you wrong, so I will reserve judgment."

"I thank you," replied Dethridge. "What you have said seems to me equally in opposition to my own knowledge but my presence here must make me doubt all I know. I cannot but wonder whether I am after all passed on beyond the mortal world and into another."

"And I a figment of your imagination?" Bruno raised his great eyebrows.

"It is a possibility I should not rule out," Dethridge admitted.

-"Could not the reverse also be possible? That it is I who is dreaming and will wake up in a moment and so negate your entire existence?"

-"Certainly, in the circumstances we must allow for that as well."

-"So I fear we are at a stand-still."

Dethridge was silent for a while. Then he said. "I'd like to go out and see the city. As I said, I studied here in my younger years though then I knew the place as Bologna. I would like to look for clues that support either my theory, or yours for that matter."

Bruno hesitated. "Yes… it is only, this extraordinary phenomenon of your shadow… I think it might alarm people if it were noticed. We should stay out of the light."

"-You will come also?"

-"I think I will. I am most keen to assure myself of my own existence, you understand. But you'll need new clothes."

Bruno lent him some of his own garments and they left the study. Bruno led the way through corridors that Dethridge felt were vaguely familiar. There were paintings and portraits on the walls but none of those painted faces looked at all recognizable to him. And the frames around them were not gilded, but silver hued.

Once they were outside, Dethridge immediately knew the exterior of the building. It seemed to be the same University he had attended a decade earlier.

"Do you remember the People's Basilica? Perhaps you can try to find the way there if you do remember," Bruno suggested.

Dethridge guessed he meant the San Petronio Basilica and set off, making sure to stay close to the walls of the houses where he could, within the shadows. It seemed to be the city he knew, but there were subtle differences that he could not explain. That house had had a different colored roof. That building had been on the other side of that street. There had been no trees there. Or was it only his memory playing tricks on him? His mind was a whirlwind of doubt, he could be sure of nothing he thought he knew.

Still he found the way to the basilica easily enough, using the two leaning towers for guidance. It was not as he remembered it. The front side was richly decorated with statues of saints and a great silver crucifix over the large door in the middle of the face of the building, and two smaller ones over the smaller doors to either side.

"It has been finished!" he exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" asked Bruno.

"When I was studying here, the Church was unfinished," Dethridge replied. "I remember there were some on-going debates about the design of the front side… but no, it that was only ten years ago. Less. Can it have been finished in so short a time after such a long time of indecision?"

Bruno's eyebrows had sunk. "I have no idea what you are saying, this church was finished last century. It was financed by the Bellonian commune and the architect and workers gave their work also so it might be finished. I believe some families may have starved for its completion but it is every citizen's pride and joy."

"Last century?" Dethridge stared at him and was silent for a moment. Then timidly: "Pray… will you tell me, what day is it?"

"I believe it is the 19th of August," said Bruno.

-"Are you certain? I could have sworn it was the 18th."

-"To my best of knowledge, but we may have that confirmed I am sure by others."

-Yes.. and… and the year?"

-"It's 1552. Why?"

Dethridge shook his head and the vague, frightening idea in it dissolved.

"Shall we go in?" Bruno gestured towards the great wooden door that stood open.

They entered the cool, half-light of the church and sat down on a pew in the back, close to the door. But sitting there in the silence brought William Dethridge no relief or comfort. He was twitchy and nervous and felt like the floor might disappear from under him. He looked around and saw that the crucifix in the nave of the church was also gleaming cold silver. There were some richly dressed ladies sitting in front of him with bowed heads and he saw the silver chains around their necks.

He bowed his head too in pretence of prayer, while thinking erratically.

"I cannot account for any of it, it must be all in my head somehow, I must be going mad," he said in a very low voice.

Bruno laid a hand on his arm. "I suppose it might indeed be the easiest for me to write you off as a madman but for some reason, I feel like there must be something to your story and… the shadow."

They both realized it was a risky topic in a church and sat quietly for a while, until Dethridge did feel calmer after all.

Then they left, and Bruno suggested a meal. He led the way to an inn, where they got victuals and wine which they took with them and enjoyed outside. It was uneventful, save for when Dethridge took Bruno's knife and pricked his finger. He gazed at a bright drop of blood as it formed and leaked down his finger.

"Does that give you any answers?" asked Bruno from under his brows.

"None," said Dethridge darkly and accepted Bruno's handkerchief to wipe away the blood.

After eating their fill of bread, olives and fruits, they continued their exploration of Bellona, comparing what they saw to what Dethridge remembered. As it grew darker, their concern about Dethridge's lack of shadow lessened. Dethridge even approached a gentleman to ask the date and he agreed with Bruno, it was the 19th of August.

Finally they went back to Bruno's abode in the University and Dethridge remembered with a jolt the little nuggets of gold. He picked up his copper disk in which the gold lay and admired it, even if he had seen with his own eyes that the people of Bellona seemed to have no regard for this precious metal. Bruno had in fact taken him to a pawnbroker's shop to show him examples of tarnished gold in old, cheap jewellery.

He handed Bruno a piece to examine as they discussed how they might speed up the tarnishing process in order to study it but came to no definitive conclusion.

Dethridge began to feel himself dosing off where he sat, holding the disk balanced on his lap. It had been an exhausting and terrifying day. He wondered how and when he could get back home to his family. And then he fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Looks like this will be a three parter. Here is part 2. You will have noticed the lack of Elizabethan language from Dethridge which always makes me apprehensive of writing him, so I avoid it. I don't really understand how that works, English is not my native language. But my reasoning here is obviously, that there are no 21st century teenagers around and Dethridge isn't going to sound archaic to himself. So it's like a modern translation, if you will :P **

The weight hit him first. It was both on top of his body and inexplicably inside of it. Then the smell and the sounds. Acrid smoke mixed with a sweeter smell. Thumps of rocks being thrown, stamps of feet, voices of men and women. One woman. Then the pain. He groaned and opened his eyes carefully.

His wife Johanna had been lying over this body, sobbing. That explained the weight and the smell and the voice. Now she shrieked and hugged him tighter, making him want to cry out with pain and relief simultaneously. He was aware of men's voices moving closer and moved his head a little to the side. He saw his hand was resting on the copper dish.

There was no gold in it. Only an oily sludge of salts and minerals.

"How long have I been out?" he croaked out.

"Oh my dear, several hours now, I thought you had certainly left me, it has been horrible, since I heard the explosion last night, we've been digging in the wreck for hours, I had not a hope you could be alive-" Johanna spoke very rapidly when she was nervous and now she was also trying to keep her voice from shaking.

-"Last night? My dear, what day is it?"

-"I… I do not know… I think, I think it is the 19th of August. Yes, I believe so."

Dethridge felt a strange sensation he could not explain, like being doused with scalding hot water but no burn afterwards and all his hairs stood on end. He sat up carefully and saw he was covered in dust, blood and bruises, and surely he must have a broken bone somewhere in his leg. He lifted his hand to look at it and was amazed to see a tiny red dot in his finger.

He embraced his wife and his children, and was glad to see them. But he had so much work to do.

The laboratory was utterly destroyed and a physician instructed him sternly to stay in bed while he recovered from his injuries. So for several weeks he could not return to Wadham but settled for staying in the house in Barnsbury with his wife, writing down everything he could remember about Bellona, comparing it with books and maps he had.

Then he thought to write to some of his colleagues down in Bologna, and as he struggled with his hideous mongrel of Italian and Latin to ask about the progress of the San Petronio Basilica, a thought struck him.

"It can't have been real," he said to himself. "We were both speaking English the entire time, not Italian."

He sent the letters anyway and then turned his thoughts to the gold. He acknowledged to himself, it might have never existed but he still tried to recall the combination of ingredients he had used before the explosion. Of course, all his notes were gone and he dared not attempt a retry of the experiment in the house but only wrote everything down in a code he had invented for himself, to disguise important research from rivals.

With the inactivity, his obsession grew. He sat up writing long into the night and Johanna worried that he might burn down the house as well, keeping all the sheets of paper too close to the candles to her liking. She knew better than to try and dissuade him though and only occasionally tried and succeeded in coaxing him away from his work and to their bed.

When his leg was healed, Dethridge took to experimenting in secret. He took the copper plate out to the cowshed where his lone milch cow greeted him, along with some scant ingredients that had been salvaged from the wreck of the laboratory and others that he managed to smuggle into the house without his wife noticing.

But his research and experiments yielded no satisfactory results and gradually, he began to dismiss the whole thing as a hallucination after the accident.

Then one day he received a reply letter from one of his Bolognian acquaintances and his interest was renewed. He poured over the letter which said that no, the San Petronio Basilica was certainly not finished and another architect had had a disagreement with the city government about the proceeding and likely he would give up on the project. His colleague wrote that he did not believe the church would be finished in his lifetime.

There were many other newsworthy things in the letter, about old friends but Dethridge felt a tiredness come over him. He must quit this nonsense before it drove him mad.

He took the plate on the table and upended its contents into the fireplace, quite recklessly. Then he started polishing it, turning it over in his hands and the motion calmed him. His head began to droop and just as he was thinking about how incredibly real the day with Bruno in Bellona had been, he fell asleep.

Dethridge woke up with a jolt and immediately recognized his surroundings even though he had not seen them for months. He was back in Bruno's study!

He was sitting in the same chair he had sat in the last time, like he had never left. He was even wearing the clothes Bruno had lent him. Bruno himself lay sleeping in his cot but stirred when Dethridge stood up.

His eyes widened. "You are back! How?"

Dethridge beamed but didn't answer the question because he had another pressing one himself.

"Bruno, what language are we speaking?"

Bruno blinked and shook his head, as if to clear it. "Language? Why, Talian of course. What kind of question is that? And where have you been?"

"I cannot hear it, I can't hear or feel that I am speaking other than my own language and I don't hear that you are speaking a language foreign to me. Do you understand me?"

Bruno gaped. "Yes, of course! You should be speaking Anglian, not Talian but you are speaking it flawlessly. I had not even thought of it."

"Indeed, and another mystery to solve my friend: what would you say if I said to you that as far as I am aware of I fell asleep at my home in England last night – or so I must assume for the present – and when I awoke I was here?"

Bruno was silent for a while. "I have some theories of my own. Let me get dressed and then let us have a bite to eat."

When he opened the shuttered window, Dethridge saw it was early morning, the sun not quite risen. They sat down with some wine, bread and cheeses.

"I thought for some time I was going mad, that I had imagined everything, I might still be," Dethridge said miserably.

"I might have thought the same myself but I have had two comforts to assure myself of your existence," Bruno said and gestured to his working table.

Dethridge picked up a small piece of cloth with a dark stain on it, wrapped around a small piece of gold. "Yes, it must be real."

"The other thing," Bruno continued, "Was a conversation I had with a man who was visiting our establishment, a geographer who had spent some time in the East with the Gate people. Do you know of them?"

Dethridge shook his head and Bruno explained the geographical details which made Dethridge nod. He understood the meaning though the words were foreign.

"Well, this geographer told me something of their beliefs – the Gate people, I mean – one part in particular interested me, which was the belief that your mind is not shackled to the body, that the mind may travel independently of the body. They can sometimes use some substances to create such a state of mind."

"While this is very interesting," said Dethridge, "I don't see how it applies to the situation at hand. I am here, body and mind. I am sitting here drinking your wine. How do you explain that?"

"I cannot," Bruno answered. "But I feel we are at the beginning of something… something new and undiscovered."

Dethridge shivered. "Yes, indeed." He looked down and his gaze landed on the copper plate. Bruno noticed.

"Were you trying to recreate the experiment? Did you make more gold?"

"No," Dethridge said slowly, picking up the plate and turning it around in his hands. "But… I don't know if this is important… but this object has been with me both times I've come here."

-"At this stage, let us not ignore anything no matter how trivial it might seem. Perhaps the metal acts as a conduit of some sort?"

-"Yes, that is possible. Well, the only test I can perform is to fall into sleep with this plate, only I don't feel much like sleeping at the moment."

Bruno stood up and got a phial from one of his cupboards. "Here, I have a mixture of poppy and chamomile. It should make you sleepy."

Dethridge eagerly took the phial, poured a few drops into his wine, stirred and drank.

"Perhaps you should lie down," Bruno suggested. "And don't forget the plate."

Dethridge flopped onto Bruno's bed with the plate in his hand and took deep breaths. But still it took him quite a while to fall asleep. Bruno held a silver pendant over his head, swinging it gently and speaking soothingly. Eventually it worked and Dethridge drifted off.

He did not hear Bruno yelp in surprise as his body disappeared off the bed.

When he woke up, he let out a shout himself. He was back at home. Immediately he grabbed his pen, ink and paper and wrote down every detail about this visit to Talia. He had only been there for half an hour so there wasn't much to write. Then he flung himself back on the bed, clutching the dish. But the blood was singing in his veins and there was a tingle in his skin, like when he lay on his arm for too long. Sleep wouldn't come and he had no medicines at hand to aid him so he got up, found his wife and dragged her back to the bed with him.

Johanna was delighted and a while later Dethridge fell asleep with ease, taking care to slip his hand under the pillow where he had hidden the copper plate.

Bruno jumped when Dethridge materialized in his study again. "Incredible! You were only gone for an hour or so but you went back home to Anglia?"

-"Yes, and deliberately came back."

They stared at each other. They had much work to do and many questions to answer. Was the intention important? They thought so but needed further tests. Was it always night time in England when it was day in Talia? Again, further experimentation was needed. What was it about the copper plate that made it the opportune conduit? The metal? Was it something to do with the experiment that had caused the explosion? Would other copper objects work? Or any other objects? And so on and so on.

By midday, they had established that Bruno could not travel the same way, at least not with Dethridge's plate nor any other copper or silver object in his laboratory. He had ingested some of the sleeping mixture and was rather drowsy so they went out for fresh air and food. Right away they remembered Dethridge's strange lack of shadow and tried to keep out of the light. That was another question that needed answers.

They went to an inn that scholars and students frequented and asked some carefully phrased questions but got answers equally vague.

"In theory," Bruno prefaced a conversation to a pair of theology students, "If mind and body were separated, would the body and mind be aware of the separation separately?"

Dethridge was introduced to one of the University professors as an Anglian visitor and he asked: "Does copper, or any copper alloys, have any known properties that could be utilized in alchemy?"

Mostly the answers they received were shaking of heads and confused stares. They were in a new territory and must navigate it by themselves.

They went back to Bruno's laboratory and continued their work long into the night.

When at last they were utterly exhausted, Dethridge lay on the cot with the copper disk and fell into a deep sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Here is the last part, hope you enjoy. Just one of the many aspects that intrigued me. I've had a request, a challenge really, which I hadn't thought of writing and I'm considering it so stay tuned.**

It was very difficult to wake up but Johanna was shaking him. "William? William, wake up!"

Finally, he opened his eyes to see her distressed face.

"My dear, what's wrong? Has something happened?"

"Oh William, I thought… I could not wake you up at all, I have been trying for hours, I was going to send for the doctor, it's nearly noon and you have been sleeping like a dead man," she said, wringing her hands.

He stroked her cheek to calm her but his mind was racing.

The next night, which was day in Talia, he told Bruno this latest discovery. "So it is clear that my body is both in England and Talia at the same time, which I do not think should be possible."

Bruno frowned thoughtfully. "I would theorize that this body in Talia is not the real one, it is some kind of a shadow body – well, a substitute body let's say – for your mind to inhabit here and that is why it casts no shadow, any more than a mind casts a shadow."

It was tough to swallow the premise because Dethridge's body in Talia functioned exactly like the one in England, save for the shadow business, but they forced themselves accept it in order to progress their research.

Another premise they accepted as given was that England and Talia existed in separate planes or universes, based on some of their previous discoveries – time, language, properties of silver and gold, the differences between Talia and Italy and England and Anglia.

This had of course some implications that made them feel both elated and terrified. Some of their thoughts they hardly dared to utter, except in very low voices within the confines of Bruno's laboratory: 'Travelling between worlds,' multiple universes.'

They spent weeks perusing old documents and manuscripts, looking for references to similar travels. Bruno wrote a letter to the geographer he had met, to ask his advice on possible sources for research.

In England, Dethridge returned to his work in Oxford where he could access more material which he hoped would be useful, as well as his better equipped laboratory. At first he was rather nervous of journeying from there to Talia but it was no different and he appeared in Bruno's laboratory just as before and woke up again in his room at Wadham college. He was even getting rather good at falling asleep at will, it was more like a trance than actual sleep.

One night he went out for some ale with his colleagues from Oxford and drank rather too much. He did not know how it happened but when he woke up, he was in Talia and was holding not only his plate but also a copper retort.

"You are quite late," Bruno remarked. It was nearly noon.

"Yes, I suppose I couldn't quite hold my ale last night," Dethridge explained sheepishly. "You see, I had not meant to come today but… well, here I am – and I seem to have brought an accessory."

He held up the retort. He stared at it and then suddenly he gasped. He shoved the bespouted bottle at Bruno. "Here! Here, take it, try it!"

-"What?"

-"Well, you tried travelling with one of your own objects and it did not work, but what if you can travel to my world with an object which originates from there? That seems logical, doesn't it?"

Bruno nodded slowly. "Yes… but your dish does not originate in Talia, does it?"

"Well, no, not as far as I know but then again, I have no idea where it comes from. Anyway, it is only a theory, we should not say anything until you've tried."

Bruno took the retort and lay down. "You will stay here?"

"Yes," replied Dethridge. "I shall observe how your body looks while your spirit is away."

"Very well," Bruno closed his eyes. When Dethridge deemed he had succumbed to slumber, he tried to wake his friend. He called, and shook him by the shoulder but nothing happened.

"Remarkable," Dethridge said to himself. Then, overcome with impatience, he sat down with the copper plate and disappeared from the room.

He woke up in his room with a pounding headache but Bruno was standing by his desk, looking around curiously.

"It worked!" they said simultaneously and embraced like they had not met for months, giddy with excitement.

They went out and explored Oxford together and saw that now Bruno was the one without a shadow and they felt like that was an affirmation of some of their theories.

In the evening they toasted in ale which they took back to Dethridge's laboratory.

"This is yours now, it is your talisman, as the plate is mine," Dethridge announced, pointing at the retort which Bruno was holding.

Bruno beamed. "We are as brothers."

"So we are! I dub us the Brotherhood of… of the Stravaganti!"

Bruno raised an eyebrow. "That's not Talian."

Dethridge grinned and shrugged. "Close enough."

Bruno smiled back and then said: "There must be others, we must find others. If something should happen to us, someone must be available to continue our work."

"Yes," Dethridge agreed, "We are only beginning."

Months later William Dethridge came to Frederico Bruno on a sunny spring day in Talia. He placed a silver ring on a table, here he had previously put a small silver cross on a chain, a chain with a decorative pendant, a horseshoe, a small clay bowl and a pen with an accompanying ink pot.

"My dear friend, I have news! My wife has borne me a son. I have named him Bruno, I pray he will have a long and prosperous life."

"Many happy returns! I am touched, I wish him all the best," said Bruno. "I too have news. There is a young man I would like you to meet, I think he would be interested in this ring. He is a student at the University of Padavia, he seems most keen on our brand of science. His name is Rodolfo Rossi."

Young Rodolfo became Dethridge's most devout follower and together they refined their science and the methods of the Stravaganti – as Dethridge took to calling them – and recruited people from all over Talia to join their order.

It was an enjoyable time, full of wonders and discoveries. Johanna bore him two more children but only one lived, a precious daughter they called Elizabeth.

However, as the years passed, difficulties arose. In Talia, the wealthy di Chimici family got wind of the Stravaganti and spoke against them, often through the Church, and accused them of ungodly sorcery.

Similarly in England, people were being persecuted for witchcraft and Dethridge's position at Oxford became more volatile, particularly after he had been found unconscious and could not be woken up by any measure. But then he awoke suddenly as if nothing was out of the ordinary and it was said he consorted with the devil.

Still, he could not keep away from Talia but tried to be careful when he stravagated. He wanted to convince people that his operations were harmless and grounded in science but his reputation as a scientist was failing too and many of his researches were dismissed as blasphemous. There were few he trusted.

He thought perhaps one way was to find more Stravagantes in England. Rodolfo had suggested he take a talisman from Talia to England and leave it for someone to find.

Dethridge agreed and took a delicate wineglass between the worlds. The glass was discovered by a young woman, a housemaid Dethridge guessed, but he never properly met her or knew if she ever stravagated. She was apprehended and burned for witchcraft a few weeks later. Dethridge was horrified and fled to Talia more and more often.

But in Talia, the authorities in Bellona were taking an increased interest in the work of the scientists at the University and many of them left the city.

"You should not be here," said Bruno. "People are giving you odd looks. They know you are not from here and it is only pure luck that your lack of shadow has not been discovered."

Dethridge was anxious. "Where could I go? I don't believe I'm safe in England either and what about you?"

"I think I am safe yet, but if things go awry I think I might head south to Cittanuova, they are an independent city state with no di Chimicis whispering in their ears."

Dethridge visited his home in Barnsbury one more time. His wife and children were sad and withdrawn, except Elizabeth who was only a toddler. Johanna cried on his shoulder.

"Oh William, you must stop whatever it is you are doing, can you not plead for mercy if you give up all your work? You could do something else!"

Dethridge tried to comfort her but to little avail.

Then one night there was a loud knock on the door. "In the name of the Queen, open this door! We have come to arrest William Dethridge for witchcraft and sorcery!"

He had no time to run, he barely managed to grab the copper plate and hide it on his person.

He was condemned to death, to burn at the stake and he was terrified – beyond terrified, paralyzed and numb with fear. But there were other cunning men in the gaol cell with him and they had friends and he escaped with him before the execution. But where could he go? There was only one place left. William Dethridge hid himself away and stravagated to Bellona.

But investigations were being conducted there so he dared not stay. After a hasty explanation to Bruno he left and went north. After some wanderings, he came to Montemurato three days after his last stravagation. His horse was exhausted and so was he. He collapsed in the stables and hid his face. Suddenly he felt a sensation like falling, and his head shot up. There was a weight in his body that he had never noticed was not there before. When he opened his eyes, he saw through the tears – stretching out before him – his shadow.


End file.
